Rachid Alami

Rachid Alami
Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems | LAAS · Department of Robotics (ROB)

PhD, Robotics and AI

About

353
Publications
69,272
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12,101
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Additional affiliations
January 2007 - December 2008
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
January 2007 - present
Université de Toulouse

Publications

Publications (353)
Article
A major challenge to deploying robots widely is navigation in human-populated environments, commonly referred to as social robot navigation . While the field of social navigation has advanced tremendously in recent years, the fair evaluation of algorithms that tackle social navigation remains hard because it involves not just robotic agents moving...
Preprint
We present a substantial extension of our Human-Aware Task Planning framework, tailored for scenarios with intermittent shared execution experiences and significant belief divergence between humans and robots, particularly due to the uncontrollable nature of humans. Our objective is to build a robot policy that accounts for uncontrollable human beh...
Article
Socially aware robot navigation is gaining popularity with the increase in delivery and assistive robots. The research is further fueled by a need for socially aware navigation skills in autonomous vehicles to move safely and appropriately in spaces shared with humans. Although most of these are ground robots, drones are also entering the field. In...
Article
Navigation of robots among humans is still an open problem, especially in confined locations (e.g. narrow corridors, doors). This article aims at finding how an anthropomorphic robot, like a PR2 robot with a height of 1.33 m, should behave when crossing a human in a narrow corridor in order to increase its usability. Two experiments studied how a c...
Chapter
In this paper, we position ourselves within the context of collaborative planning. Drawing upon our recent research, we introduce a novel, knowledge rich task planning framework that represents and reasons and effectively addresses agents’ first-order false beliefs to solving a task planning problem with a shared goal. Our contributions to this wor...
Preprint
Full-text available
A major challenge to deploying robots widely is navigation in human-populated environments, commonly referred to as social robot navigation. While the field of social navigation has advanced tremendously in recent years, the fair evaluation of algorithms that tackle social navigation remains hard because it involves not just robotic agents moving i...
Preprint
In human-robot collaboration, the objectives of the human are often unknown to the robot. Moreover, even assuming a known objective, the human behavior is also uncertain. In order to plan a robust robot behavior, a key preliminary question is then: How to derive realistic human behaviors given a known objective? A major issue is that such a human b...
Chapter
This talk will address some key decisional issues that are necessary for a cognitive and interactive robot which shares space and tasks with humans. We adopt a constructive approach based on the identification and the effective implementation of individual and collaborative skills. The system is comprehensive since it aims at dealing with a complet...
Chapter
This paper describes an approach to ethical planning in robotics that combines classical planning, Linear Temporal Logic and lexicographically ordered value sets. We also discuss the features and limitations of the model, with particular attention to its philosophical implications.
Preprint
Full-text available
Current approaches in human-aware or social robot navigation address the humans that are visible to the robot. However, it is also important to address the possible emergences of humans to avoid shocks or surprises to humans and erratic behavior of the robot planner. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to detect and address these human emerg...
Chapter
Social robotics research requires the replicability of the experiments used to validate new technical or scientific claims. However, humans behavior is difficult to replicate. We have designed and implemented a system to simulate interactive agents that can be perceived by a robot in a robotic simulator. These agents can exhibit social behaviour in...
Preprint
Full-text available
We consider the human-aware task planning problem where a human-robot team is given a shared task with a known objective to achieve. Recent approaches tackle it by modeling it as a team of independent, rational agents, where the robot plans for both agents' (shared) tasks. However, the robot knows that humans cannot be administered like artificial...
Preprint
Full-text available
In this paper we propose a framework for ethical decision making in the context of planning, with intended application to robotics. We put forward a compact but highly expressive language for ethical planning that combines linear temporal logic with lexicographic preference modelling. This original combination allows us to assess plans both with re...
Article
Full-text available
When humans interact with each other, collaborating on a shared activity or chatting, they are able to tell whether their interaction is going well or not and if they observe that its quality is deteriorating, they can adapt their behavior or invite their partner to act in order to improve it. A robot endowed with the ability to evaluate the qualit...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Research in joint action focuses on the psychological, neurological, and physical mechanisms by which humans collaborate with other agents, and overlaps with several domains related to human-robot interaction. The development of artificial systems that can support or emulate the requisite aspects of joint action could lead to improved human-robot t...
Article
Full-text available
The vast expansion of research in human-robot interactions (HRI) these last decades has been accompanied by the design of increasingly skilled robots for engaging in joint actions with humans. However, these advances have encountered significant challenges to ensure fluent interactions and sustain human motivation through the different steps of joi...
Article
The Toxicology and Pharmacology Laboratory is a high-risk work environment, especially the chemical risk that appears when people are exposed to reagents and chemicals. A corrective approach is required to identify and control these risks. The aim of this study is to determine how to manage the analytical risks at LTP designated for the dosage of d...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Being able to refer to an object, a person, or a place in a non-ambiguous manner is a need when one has to achieve collaborative activities with a partner. This is the so-called Referring Expression Generation (REG) problem. While widely used for Human-Robot Interaction, state of the art approaches restrict its use to the current environment. We pr...
Preprint
Full-text available
As more robots are being deployed into human environments, a human-aware navigation planner needs to handle multiple contexts that occur in indoor and outdoor environments. In this paper, we propose a tunable human-aware robot navigation planner that can handle a variety of humanrobot contexts. We present the architecture of the planner and discuss...
Chapter
Full-text available
Joint action in the sphere of human–human interrelations may be a model for human–robot interactions. Human–human interrelations are only possible when several prerequisites are met, inter alia: (1) that each agent has a representation within itself of its distinction from the other so that their respective tasks can be coordinated; (2) each agent...
Article
Full-text available
Today, physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) is a very popular topic in the field of ground manipulation. At the same time, aerial physical interaction is also developing very fast. Nevertheless, pHRI with aerial vehicles has not been addressed so far. In this work, we present the study of one of the first systems in which a human is physically c...
Chapter
Full-text available
Most areas of the law rely on the assumption on free will, which manifests in the expression of consent. We examine the nature of human emotions toward fictional characters and social robots, and question the concept of consent in the context of these unreciprocated fictional relationships. We conclude that policies need to regulate the use of soci...
Preprint
Full-text available
This paper addresses the problem of taking into account the feasibility and cost of verbal communication actions at the task planning level in the context of human-robot interaction. By determining the human and robot context in which the referring expressions to entities can be effectively achieved and at which cost, our planner can 1) prevent pot...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper addresses the problem of taking into account the feasibility and cost of verbal communication actions at the task planning level in the context of human-robot interaction. By determining the human and robot context in which the referring expressions to entities can be effectively achieved and at which cost, our planner can 1) prevent pot...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), ensuring non-ambiguous communication between the robot and the human is a key point for carrying out fluently a collaborative task. With this work, we propose a method which allows the robot to generate the optimal set of assertions that are necessary in order to produce an unambiguous reference. In this paper, we...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
When we perform a collaborative task with another human, we are able to tell, to a certain extent, how things are going and more precisely if things are going well or not. This knowledge allows us to adapt our behavior. Therefore, we think it is desirable to provide robots with means to measure in real-time the Quality of the Interaction with their...
Preprint
Full-text available
Today, physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI) is a very popular topic in the field of ground manipulation. At the same time, Aerial Physical Interaction (APhI) is also developing very fast. Nevertheless, pHRI with aerial vehicles has not been addressed so far. In this work, we present the study of one of the first systems in which a human is physi...
Chapter
We claim that navigation in human environments can be viewed as cooperative activity especially in constrained situations. Humans concurrently aid and comply with each other while moving in a shared space. Cooperation helps pedestrians to efficiently reach their own goals and respect conventions such as the personal space of others. To meet human c...
Chapter
Full-text available
Providing guidance to customers in a shopping mall is a suitable task for a social service robot. To be useful for customers, the guidance needs to be intuitive and effective. We conducted a four-phase qualitative study to explore what kind of guidance customers need in a shopping mall, which characteristics make human guidance intuitive and effect...
Preprint
Full-text available
In the EU-funded MuMMER project, we have developed a social robot designed to interact naturally and flexibly with users in public spaces such as a shopping mall. We present the latest version of the robot system developed during the project. This system encompasses audio-visual sensing, social signal processing, conversational interaction, perspec...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this paper we present Ontologenius, a semantic knowledge storage and reasoning framework for autonomous robots. More than a classic ontology software to query a knowledge base and a first-order internal logic as it can be done for web-semantics, we propose with Ontologenius features adapted to a robotic use including human-robot interaction. We...
Preprint
Full-text available
An important tradition in philosophy holds that in order to successfully perform a joint action, the participants must be capable of establishing commitments on joint goals and shared plans. This suggests that social robotics should endow robots with similar competences for commitment management in order to achieve the objective of performing joint...
Chapter
This chapter deals with the integration of different planners that solve problems from different domains in a common context. In particular, a joint solution for structure assembly planning, symbolic task planning and geometric planning is presented and analyzed in the construction of structures with a team of aerial robots equipped with on-board m...
Conference Paper
Robots are becoming more and more present in our everyday life at work or for entertainment. This raised the need for a principled and well-understood interaction between humans and robots which led to the creation of the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research field. In order to assess the models, designs and algorithms elaborated in these research...
Book
Full-text available
This chapter deals with the integration of different planners that solve problems from different domains in a common context. In particular, a joint solution for structure assembly planning, symbolic task planning and geometric planning is presented and analyzed in the construction of structures with a team of aerial robots equipped with on-board m...
Article
Full-text available
Therapy combination is known for less side effects and higher efficacy. Essential Oils (EOs) and mixture from two well-known plants (Syzygium aromaticum and Pelargonium graveolens) were tested for in vivo antioxidant and antiinflammatory activities. The chemical analysis of the investigated Oils has lead to the identification of Eugenol (74.06%), C...
Conference Paper
The domain of human-robot Joint Action is a growing field where roboticists, psychologists and philosophers start to collaborate in order to devise robot abilities that are as efficient and convenient for the human partner as possible. Besides studying Joint Action and developing algorithms and schemes to control the robot and manage the interactio...
Article
Full-text available
Despite major progress in Robotics and AI, robots are still basically “zombies” repeatedly achieving actions and tasks without understanding what they are doing. Deep-Learning AI programs classify tremendous amounts of data without grasping the meaning of their inputs or outputs. We still lack a genuine theory of the underlying principles and metho...
Article
Full-text available
Echinoderms have attracted the attention of scientists over the past few years after identifying a variety of unique structures endowed by interesting biological properties. However, the Moroccan coast biodiversity is still uninvestigated. In our ongoing attempts to valorize the rich Moroccan marine environment, this study aimed at assessing the an...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: Therapy combination is defined as disease treatment with two or more medication to acheive efficacy with lower doses or lower toxicity. Regarding its reported toxicities and efficacy, the Essential Oils (EOs) from Syzygium aromaticum (SA) and Pelargonium graveolens (PG) were combined for in vitro and in vivo assays and toxicities. Meth...
Book
Full-text available
In the area of consumer robots that need to have rich social interactions with humans, one of the challenges is the complexity of computing the appropriate interactions in a cognitive, social and physical context. We propose a novel approach for social robots based on the concept of Social Practices. By using social practices robots are able to be...
Conference Paper
It has been shown that, when a human and a robot have to perform a joint activity together, they need to structure their activity based on a so-called “shared plan”. In this work, we present a scheme and an implemented system which allow the robot to elaborate and execute shared plans that are flexible enough to be achieved in collaboration with a...
Book
Full-text available
It has been shown that, when a human and a robot have to perform a joint activity together, they need to structure their activity based on a so-called ”shared plan”. In this work, we present a scheme and an implemented system which allow the robot to elaborate and execute shared plans that are flexible enough to be achieved in collaboration with a...
Article
Full-text available
We claim that navigation in human environments can be viewed as cooperative activity especially in constrained situations. Humans concurrently aid and comply with each other while moving in a shared space. Cooperation helps pedestrians to efficiently reach their own goals and respect conventions such as the personal space of others. To meet human c...
Article
Collaboration between humans and robots to accomplish different kinds of tasks has been recently studied as a planning problem and several techniques have been developed to define and generate shared plans where humans and robots collaborate to achieve a common goal. However, current methods require the knowledge of the human about the plan under e...
Chapter
For more than a decade, the field of human-robot interaction has generated many valuable contributions of interest to the robotics community at large. The field is vast and addresses issues in perception, decision, action, communication and learning, as well as their integration. At the same time, research on human-human joint action has become a t...
Book
This document is an extended version of the one published in the proceedings of RoboPhilosophy conference
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Navigation in human environments is a cooperative task and needs to be treated as it is. Humans concurrently assist and comply with each other. To achieve comparable efficiency, a robot needs to predict human trajectories and plan its own trajectory accordingly. We present a navigation planner that is able to plan such cooperative trajectories simu...
Article
Full-text available
Scolymus hispanicus or the Golden Thistle, locally known as ‘Guernina’ or ‘Taghediwt’, is one of the most appreciated wild vegetables in Morocco. This study aims to characterise the functional chemical and pharmacological variability of Scolymus hispanicus parts (roots, stems, leaves and flowers). The chemical analysis revealed higher content of α-...
Data
Scolymus hispanicus or the Golden Thistle, locally known as ‘Guernina’ or ‘Taghediwt’, is one of the most appreciated wild vegetables in Morocco. This study aims to characterise the functional chemical and pharmacological variability of Scolymus hispanicus parts (roots, stems, leaves and flowers). The chemical analysis revealed higher content of α-...
Conference Paper
MuMMER (MultiModal Mall Entertainment Robot) is a four-year, EU-funded project with the overall goal of developing a humanoid robot (SoftBank Robotics’ Pepper robot being the primary robot platform) with the social intelligence to interact autonomously and naturally in the dynamic environments of a public shopping mall, providing an engaging and en...
Conference Paper
For effective Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), a robot should be human and human-environment aware. Perspective taking, effort analysis and affordance analysis are some of the core components in such human-centered reasoning. This paper is concerned with the need for benchmarking scenarios to assess the resultant intelligence, when such reasoning blo...
Book
For effective Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), a robot should be human and human-environment aware. Perspective taking, effort analysis and affordance analysis are some of the core components in such human-centered reasoning. This paper is concerned with the need for benchmarking scenarios to assess the resultant intelligence, when such reasoning blo...
Book
MuMMER (MultiModal Mall Entertainment Robot) is a four-year, EU-funded project with the overall goal of developing a humanoid robot (SoftBank Robotics’ Pepper robot being the primary robot platform) with the social intelligence to interact autonomously and naturally in the dynamic environments of a public shopping mall, providing an engaging and en...